Violence
When You Can’t Tube…Impact of a Major YouTube Outage on Rapes
Full Article Title: When You Can’t Tube… Impact of a Major YouTube Outage on Rapes
Open Access: No
Abstract
On Tuesday, October 16, 2018, YouTube experienced a major and rare global service outage. Using high-frequency crime data from the United States, we document an important increase in rapes in the 24-hour period following the outage. We investigate various potential underlying channels that may link the YouTube outage to the subsequent observed increase in rapes. The overall evidence only supports the hypothesis that the increase in rapes was driven by an increase in pornography viewing.
Relevance
“Our paper provides evidence that supports the hypothesis that an increase in pornography viewing may lead to an increase in rapes.”
Citation
Gibbons, M. A., & Rossi, M. A. (2021). When You Can’t Tube…Impact of a Major YouTube Outage on Rapes. Economic Inquiry, 59 (2), 762-775. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12964